Chapter 49: I Won’t Admit It

Xia Mi woke up to find herself back in her small rental apartment, though she had no memory of how she had gotten there.

Liao Tianhua was sitting with his back to her, seemingly eating something.

Xia Mi patted her stomach. She didn’t feel particularly hungry, but she didn’t mind having a little snack.

“What are you eating that’s so good?” Xia Mi asked, trotting over to the table.

Liao Tianhua gave her a flat look and pointed at the peanuts and pickled vegetables on the table. “You don’t like this stuff,” he said dismissively.

Xia Mi indeed didn’t like pickled vegetables; she preferred fresh greens.

As for the peanuts, she used to love them, but after learning to track calories while dieting, she realized that nuts were shockingly high in energy. Since then, she had stopped eating things like sunflower seeds and peanuts.

Looking at the spread before Liao Tianhua, just rice, pickles, and peanuts, it really wasn’t very appetizing.

Xia Mi rested her chin in her hands and looked at the table, complaining slightly, “Why aren’t you eating any meat? Is that stuff really good with rice? If this is what you’re eating, I can’t even join you for a meal.”

Liao Tianhua set down his chopsticks and asked seriously, “Xia Mi, are you… actually hungry?”

“Not really,” Xia Mi replied, “but it’s just that I…”

Halfway through her sentence, Xia Mi glanced at the sky. Seeing the twilight deepening into evening, she continued, “I must have slept for a full day and night, right? After sleeping that long, of course I’d want to eat something.”

Liao Tianhua waved a hand in front of Xia Mi’s eyes. She pushed his hand away and snapped, “What are you doing?”

“Checking if you’re actually awake or just sleepwalking,” Liao Tianhua said.

“Of course I’m awake! Why would I be sleepwalking?” Xia Mi said. “I’ve been a great sleeper since I was a kid. I lived in a dorm all through university and no one ever said I sleepwalked.”

Liao Tianhua looked Xia Mi up and down. “You do seem somewhat awake.”

With that, Liao Tianhua picked up his chopsticks again and calmly began picking up peanuts.

Xia Mi observed him curiously for a moment, looking puzzled. “Xiao Liao, I feel like you have a sort of calm madness about you.”

Liao Tianhua continued to pick up peanuts with slow deliberation, showing no intention of chatting with her.

Seeing that he was ignoring her, Xia Mi gave a cold snort and started looking for her phone to entertain herself.

As a modern young person, she was well-versed in finding her own fun while alone.

Xia Mi rummaged around the head of the bed but couldn’t find her phone. She did, however, notice that her bedsheets had been changed.

Her own sheets had a fresh green bamboo pattern with cute pandas scattered among the stalks, but the current sheets were plain white.

Xia Mi would never use white sheets; even the slightest bit of dirt would show, making them a nightmare to wash.

“Why are my sheets white now?” she asked.

Liao Tianhua pointed toward the wardrobe. “The green ones are washed. They’re in the closet.”

Xia Mi ran over to check the wardrobe and was shocked to find that every single piece of her clothing had been folded into perfect, sharp squares¹, neatly stacked inside.

“Xiao Liao!” Xia Mi rushed back to Liao Tianhua. “Look at the wardrobe!”

“Is there a problem?” Liao Tianhua asked, his voice as flat as a still pond.

Xia Mi said, “You’re right, I might actually be sleepwalking. I must have organized my wardrobe this neatly in my dreams!”

With a loud crunch, Liao Tianhua crushed a peanut to powder. His expression held a hint of gritted teeth.

“Is that so? Well, aren’t you impressive,” Liao Tianhua said.

“You’re being really annoying today, all sarcastic and weird,” Xia Mi said. “I’m done talking to you. Where’s my phone?”

Liao Tianhua pointed to the desk. Xia Mi looked over and saw her phone and laptop arranged neatly on the table. All the charging cables had been coiled, smoothed out, and tied together with string. It was unnervingly tidy.

Xia Mi grew more and more confused.

She went to the desk and picked up her phone, running her hand across the surface of the wood. There wasn’t a speck of dust.

This table used to be dusty.

Xia Mi was usually messy; the desk was always cluttered, and since she’d have to clear everything off just to wipe it down, she rarely bothered. She was too lazy for that.

Now, everything had been put away, and the desk was spotless.

Xia Mi scratched her head, realizing that a lot seemed to have happened while she was asleep.

She turned on her phone and saw the battery was at 100%. The date displayed on the screen was October 27, 2024.

Xia Mi: “…”

She rubbed her eyes and looked at the time again. It was still October 27.

“I think my phone is broken,” Xia Mi said.

“How is it broken?” Liao Tianhua picked up the last few grains of rice from his bowl, one by one, and ate them.

Xia Mi said, “It was September 25 when we left the Pharmaceutical Factory, right? I slept way too long this time, maybe two days and two nights, so today should be September 27. But my phone says October 27. That’s a whole month off. Is there something wrong with the network?”

Liao Tianhua set down his bowl and chopsticks. “There’s nothing wrong with your network. Today really is October 27.”

“Are you kidding me? How could I sleep for over a month?” Xia Mi said. “If I really slept for a month, wouldn’t I stink? I still smell fresh right now, that’s my body wash, I just took a shower! Besides, if I stayed in bed for a month without moving, my muscles would atrophy. Look how firm my biceps are! And another thing, did I not eat or drink for a month? I would have starved to death!”

“It seems you really are awake.” Liao Tianhua smiled thinly, took out his own phone, opened a video, and handed it to Xia Mi.

Xia Mi took the phone and saw a video of herself eating ravenously. Liao Tianhua was standing beside her.

“This… when did you film this? Wait, I haven’t even eaten with you,” Xia Mi said.

Liao Tianhua said, “Xia Mi, be fair. Look closely at the video. Am I eating with you? You’re eating; I’m just watching.”

“Why didn’t you eat with me?” Xia Mi asked, confused.

Liao Tianhua took a deep breath and let out a long, slow exhale, as if venting all the frustration he had built up over this period.

Then he spoke: “Xia Mi, you slept for an entire month. For the first week, you were asleep in the hospital. You didn’t wake up once during that time. We tried everything to get you to regain consciousness, but you didn’t react at all.

“You were lying in the hospital, taking up a bed for nothing without undergoing any treatment. Group Leader Mi suggested bringing you home so you could rest in a familiar environment, thinking that might wake you up.

“Since you were in a coma, we couldn’t just leave you alone. Captain Qiu and I set up a schedule to take turns looking after you.

“On my first day watching you, you woke up.”

“I have no memory of that,” Xia Mi said, bewildered.

Liao Tianhua replied, “To be precise, you woke up right after I finished cooking for myself and set the food on the table. You ate every scrap of my meal, washed up on your own, and went back to sleep.

“I thought you were truly awake then, so I called Group Leader Mi and the doctors. They spent ages examining you, but you didn’t react at all. In the end, they could only leave you under observation.

“On the third day, when Captain Qiu was on duty, you didn’t react. On the fourth day, it was my turn again. Just as I finished making lunch, you crawled out of bed and ate my food again.

“I called Group Leader Mi and the doctors a second time. After the exam, you still wouldn’t wake up.

“From then on, as long as I was on duty and as long as I put food on the table, you would definitely wake up, definitely eat every last bite, and then go back to sleep.

“It’s been a month. I haven’t eaten a single meal I’ve cooked. It all went into your stomach!”

Xia Mi felt as if she were listening to advanced calculus. She felt like she vaguely understood what Liao Tianhua was saying, but upon closer thought, it felt entirely alien.

She spent a long time trying to remember, but she truly couldn’t recall anything that had happened during that period. However, she did find a loophole in Liao Tianhua’s story.

She questioned him, “Why did I only steal your food and never Xiao Qiu’s?”

Liao Tianhua said, “Captain Qiu doesn’t know how to cook. Every time she went to your house, she ate military rations, compressed biscuits and canned sardines. Group Leader Mi said you probably just didn’t like those two things.”

Xia Mi exclaimed, “Who likes canned sardines! I don’t even understand why that stuff exists! I’ve had compressed biscuits before; they’re actually quite fragrant, but they’re too heavy. You take one bite and don’t want a second.”

Liao Tianhua continued, “For the sake of the experiment, Captain Qiu eventually started bringing boxed lunches and ordering takeout. You snatched and ate all of those too. Once she realized she couldn’t get a single bite of food if she brought those things, and her theory was confirmed, she stopped bringing them and went back to the biscuits.”

“And then?” Xia Mi asked.

Liao Tianhua said, “We couldn’t let you starve, so people brought food for you every day. But you wouldn’t eat anything brought by a stranger. You only ate food that passed through my hands or Captain Qiu’s. You were actually quite vigilant.

“Group Leader Mi analyzed it and said the reason you didn’t wake up in the hospital was because the environment was unfamiliar. In reality, you were already starving during that week at the hospital. It’s a good thing we brought you home, otherwise who knows how long it would have been before you ate.

“But because of this trait, as long as Captain Qiu or I had edible food in our hands, you would crawl out of bed to snatch it, preventing either of us from eating.”

Xia Mi looked at the pickles and peanuts on the table, finally understanding why Liao Tianhua was eating such things.

She gave a couple of awkward laughs and said, “Heh heh, well, it’s just because I don’t see you as an outsider!”

Hearing this, the tips of Liao Tianhua’s ears turned red for some inexplicable reason. He looked up at Xia Mi and asked, “Did you dream while you were asleep? How much do you remember from your dreams?”

Xia Mi thought back seriously and shook her head. “I didn’t dream at all. My sleep quality was excellent.”

“You don’t remember anything at all?” Liao Tianhua pressed.

Xia Mi wasn’t stupid; she was quite sharp. From Liao Tianhua’s words, she vaguely guessed that while she was asleep, she might have done other embarrassing things besides stealing food.

She didn’t want to hear any more.

So, Xia Mi said very decisively, “Here’s the deal. Please don’t tell the conscious me about things that happened when I wasn’t conscious. If you want to settle a score, go find the unconscious version of me. Telling me now is useless because the unconscious me isn’t here right now, right? Hahahaha!”

Xia Mi had realized this tactic after getting drunk once.

It was during a Spring Festival² family gathering. She hadn’t intended to drink, but her relatives pressured her into having a single beer.

Who would have thought that after one sip, Xia Mi would enter Drunken Immortal mode. She moved from beer to liquor, then from liquor to wine, dragging her relatives into nonsensical conversations. When they tried to go home, she stood in front of the door wielding a toilet brush, declaring, “One man guards the pass, ten thousand cannot cross³! If a single soul passes through here today, I, Xia Mi, shall offer up my head⁴!” She brandished the toilet brush like a sword, sending her relatives running in all directions.

When she woke up the next day, her mother showed her a video she had recorded. Xia Mi took only two glances before saying, “Mom, wait until the next time I’m drunk to show her this video. What’s the use of showing it to me now? The drunk me isn’t even here!”

From then on, Xia Mi had learned how to handle these awkward situations.

Xia Mi patted Liao Tianhua on the shoulder and said with deep sincerity, “Xiao Liao, you have to learn to identify the responsible party in your dealings. The subject of responsibility here clearly isn’t me, so you can’t come to me for it. I mean, I’ve slept for so many days and sleepwalked so many times, why didn’t you talk to her then?

“How about this: whatever debts or grievances you have, write them down one by one. Next time I sleepwalk, you can settle the score with her properly.”

Liao Tianhua looked at Xia Mi in disbelief. He had likely never met someone so thick-skinned and never expected Xia Mi to say such a thing.

Xia Mi, however, felt completely refreshed, acting as if she wouldn’t acknowledge anything Liao Tianhua said.

After a long silence, Liao Tianhua asked, “Xia Mi, you and your boyfriend, how are things?”

At the mention of her boyfriend, Xia Mi felt a sense of relief. She said, “Counting this month I was asleep, he hasn’t contacted me for three months. I assume we’ve naturally broken up.”

“What if he contacts you again?” Liao Tianhua asked.

Xia Mi asked, puzzled, “Haven’t you always been convinced that my boyfriend doesn’t even exist? Why are you suddenly concerned about him? He probably won’t contact me again. In my memory, he isn’t the type to drag things out. He’s very decisive; he won’t regret the decisions he makes.”

“Don’t be so certain. If he does contact you, how will you handle it?” Liao Tianhua said.

Xia Mi thought about it for a moment and said, “Reject him, obviously. It’s never going to happen. He can get as far away from me as possible.”

“Fine! You said it!” Liao Tianhua stood up and started to leave.

“Where are you going?” Xia Mi shouted after him.

“I’m going on a blind date!” Liao Tianhua squeezed the words out through gritted teeth.

Xia Mi chased him into the hallway, shouting at his retreating back, “What about me? What about my situation? Aren’t you going to help with my job? Don’t go on a blind date yet, take care of me first!”

Liao Tianhua looked furious as he walked away with long, rapid strides.

When Xia Mi chased him as far as the stairwell, she saw the door to Room 710 standing open. Lin Xiaoli was leaning against the doorframe, munching on an apple while watching her.

Xia Mi stopped in her tracks and stared intently at Lin Xiaoli.

Lin Xiaoli gave a small smile and offered some advice. “So that’s the boyfriend who dumped you? He’s certainly handsome. But take it from me, don’t hang onto a scumbag. Don’t act like it’s the end of the world over a cheating boyfriend. You’re still young, a college student, there are plenty of men out there.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Xia Mi explained.

Lin Xiaoli nodded. “Right, you just broke up, I saw. You need to maintain that resolve from now on. Never go back to an ex, you understand?”

Xia Mi wanted to explain, but the situation was too complicated, so she could only nod.

Lin Xiaoli continued, “When you go through a breakup, you should change your hairstyle. Look at your hair, it looks like a bird’s nest. Didn’t you have someone set up a membership card for you at my place? Come see me tomorrow, and I’ll give you a nice haircut.”

“The membership card is already done?” Xia Mi asked in surprise.

“Yeah, it was finished a month ago. You just never showed up,” Lin Xiaoli said.

Xia Mi muttered under her breath, “If the membership card came through, then my Bianzhi must have already… Captain Liao! Captain! Liao Tianhua! Handsome! Don’t leave!”

She shouted a string of names after Liao Tianhua and went chasing after him.

Lin Xiaoli shook her head in disappointment. “I just told her not to go back to him, and there she goes chasing him again. Young people these days, honestly!”

Translator’s Notes